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The Cycle of Wealth

In society, wealth earned from it needs to be ploughed back for a higher social return

Published: Nov 29, 2013 06:50:01 AM IST
Updated: Nov 26, 2013 01:57:57 PM IST

At Forbes India, many of our stories revolve around entrepreneurship, innovation and success—the end product of which is often the creation of wealth. But wealth is not merely an end product; it is also the starting point for setting off a virtuous cycle of gain. The worst thing that can happen to wealth is for it to stagnate and atrophy in some bank in Cayman Islands or somewhere else. Philanthropists know this better than anyone else. This is why even while their businesses may be raking it in, they are constantly looking for ways to make their wealth do more than just generate a profit for themselves.

The Cycle of Wealth
It is often presumed that charity is done for the psychic benefits it brings, and for soothing guilty consciences about wealth. There may be some truth to that, but there is a deeper philosophical and systemic reason why philanthropy is moving centre stage: If you don’t use it, you lose it. In business, profits have to be ploughed back, and in society, wealth earned from it needs to be ploughed back for a higher social return. If you don’t have a great society, wealth turns quickly to ashes.

In this issue, we bring you our second instalment of the Forbes India Philanthropy Awards precisely to honour those who have realised this simple truth. Our awards have 10 categories, but this year our jury chose to recognise only nine of them. The 10th category, in their opinion, did not have someone who really merited an award. Our jury clearly does not take its job lightly.

An interesting thing we note in the philanthropy awards this year is that old money is as well represented as new money. The Nilekanis on our cover represent professionals who came into wealth through sheer hard work; so do Amit Chandra of Bain Capital and the Wadhwanis of Symphony Group. But the Bajajs and Godrejs represent old money that has made philanthropy its calling card for decades.

The Forbes India Philanthropy Awards are thus a blend of the old and the new, the bold and the traditional. An eclectic mix, one would think.


Best,
R Jagannathan
Editor-in-Chief, Forbes India
Email: r.jagannathan@network18online.com
Twitter id: @TheJaggi
 

(This story appears in the 13 December, 2013 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)

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  • Mohsin Mulla

    \"But wealth is not merely an end product; it is also the starting point for setting off a virtuous cycle of gain\" : beautiful lines

    on Dec 2, 2013
  • Sunita

    I don't understand why there is so much hatred for wealth in India! What is wrong with making wealth and enjoying it? Even if a person enjoys his wealth, he is giving a part of it for service provided for him, which in turn helps them to earn wealth. We have a tendency to see everything as zero-sum game as though, people, who earn wealth will somehow run away somewhere after their wealth! It's a fallacy. Even, if a wealth man invests his wealth in useful business, he is helping others get employment and some suppliers opportunities for creating wealth and customers he is helping in serving them! Why should we think that we can serve a society only by giving away wealth? Why can't we serve society by just doing our work? Are we not serving society by giving taxes? Why does Forbes India take left of center position on these issues? Pls. understand that every economic activity always does some good to the society! So we need to encourage more economic activity in general rather than certain type of wealth transfer kind of economic activity!

    on Dec 2, 2013
  • Kirandeep Atwal

    This concept is explained in detail by Swami Vivekananda in book called \"Karma Yoga\". This is short book and it will not take long time to read.

    on Nov 30, 2013